[X] My Assistant

[Webscientist]

The Cassini radar images taken during the flyby of April 30, 2006 show the bright Xanadu region. One big surprise is that it is made of highlands and mountains more than 1000 meters high ( 0.62 mile ). It contradicts the expectations of most scientists who thought that mountains didn't exceed 300 meters.

And the radar images indicate that the constituent of those mountains is similar to a porous water ice. So imagine a giant mountain made of water ice!

The Xanadu region also shows networks of drainage channels. They appear bright in the radar images. How to interpret? normally, a liquid should be less reflective!

http://www.titanexploration.com

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

downloading the entire radar swap (60Mo) is worth waiting, there are plenty of details on it.


I noted some facts:

-mountains don't seem eroded by rain, ther e is no valley-crest pattern.
-however there are long drainage channels, very earth looking, like rivers and river branching.

This is not coherent: on Earth, both go together. Rain creates rivers, and it erodes mountains in a recognizable way.


Another contradiction:
drainage channels goes in clear zones and dark zones as well. Some even go through dark zones, then into clear zones, and back in dark zones. This is not coherent if we assume that darl zones are low and clear zones are high. The only coherent thing is that mountains are clear, and flow channels go around, not through.


Also on Earth there are rivers everywhere (and even river beds in very dry zones). Especially we find rivers radiating off mountains and gathering into low lands, following tectonic slopes and bottoms. On Titan there are just some large river beds spread at random throught dark or clear areas.


So I think that the liquids play a fundamentaly different role on Titan than on Earth. Already some on this forum theoretized that methane rains would be violent, but very rare. On Earth this gives desertic land forms, with very large wadis and alluvion fans all around the mountains, that we comonly see into Sahara, Saud Arabia, etc. Nothing such on Titan. Rains would be so rare that to have fell into only some places in tens of million years? Are there really rains at all? And if not, where the liquid comes from and where it goes, to form such drainage channels?

What is funny too is that the drainage channels are large, like large flows. They show meanders in some places. But these meanders show little evolution, as if the flow was of only a short duration. But this short duration flow however deeply gouged into the land. So there must be a special erosion form, not just mechanical as in Earth rivers. For instance a surge of hot water (from underground) cutting into water ice or hydrocarbons, or methane dissolving other hydrocarbons.

The only familiar feature I see is those potato-shaped darker areas we see in many places into the clear lands. They look very much like what we see in Sahara, where rain gathers into hollow places. Those hollow places are then outlined with dry vegetation, so that they appear as stains. On Titan the hydrocarbons falling from the sky would play the role of the vegetation, outlining the hollow places. But if so, the dark lands are much darker...

Interesting indeed.

I hope I shall see one day a Titan flyer getting all these places analyzed, and answer all these riddles. I remember that, when I was a kid, Titan was a mere spot of light...

And if it is true that we survive after death into a spirit body, I shall certainly use it to visit Titan.